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AI: Skepticism 101
I’ll be presenting a workshop at The Amaz!ng Meeting in Vegas this Thursday, entitled Skepticism 101. I’ll be talking with Jeff Wagg, and we’ll treat some principles such as Ockam’s Razor, and phenomena such as pareidolia. What concepts do you see as fundamental to new skeptics?
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AI: the boundaries of skepticism
Beyond the idea of early “Philosophical Skepticism” we have the notion of “contemporary”, “modern”, “new” or “classical” skepticism, that is mostly concerned with pseudoscientific and paranormal claims. Some perceive this as a narrow set of subjects that we should concern ourselves with, others see this as boundless, with skepticism having applications to all areas of life. Skepticism is evolving for…
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AI: my usual please…
I only have to walk into my local cafe and a small latte appears on the table for me. I don’t even have to ask for “my usual” anymore… Call me predictable, or call me decisive…this isn’t to say I won’t try something wild, like a crazy cappuccino…or a threesome with your best friend. Be it food, drink or something…
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AI: I’d rather be…
Right now, I’d rather be sitting on the beach at Mooloolaba, in Queensland, Australia, drinking a coffee, and otherwise doing nothing at all… Where would you rather be? What would you rather be doing?
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AI: teh mispeling
In Linguistics, we distinguish between errors, and mistakes. Errors are incorrect answers because you simply don’t know something, whereas mistakes are incorrect answers to which you know the correct answer…like typos. For me, I ALWAYS misspell “regards” are regrads” (transposing the letters), “skeptic” as “sketpic” (again, transposing) and “thyroid” as “thyrpid” (cause the ‘p’ is next to the ‘o’…wow, sounds…
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AI: Causes
The notions of “cause” and “charity” tend to get mixed up a fair bit, and of course, while we’d see skepticism as a cause, and we might donate to skepticism, via time, money or purchases, it’s no charity. Aside from skepticism, which I assume is your gig unless you’ve stumbled into the lion’s den; we all tend to have our…
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AI: SkeptiCal and other Conferences
Yesterday we held our inaugural Northern California Science and Skepticism conference, SkeptiCal. It was a wonderful success, and we’re all coming down after a long, hard day of skepticism. I presented a talk about psychics, and I’m relieved that I packed out the room despite the lure of concurrent talks by the charming Seth Shostak and the delightful Chris Hoofnagle.…
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Brian does the Bay Area
The Ohlone College Psychology Club presents… An Evening with Brian Dunning! No! Don’t go yet! ;) Brian isn’t so bad, when you don’t get to know him. Seriously, Brian is the Host of Skeptoid, this growing podcast with about 16 listeners per week. Brian will be talking about health scams and myths, covering vaccines, detox, homeopathy and fast food phobias.…
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